When it come to billionaires spending money to curry political favor, one can never assume their work is done. Or that geography matters much, either.

Such is certainly the case with the Louisiana Senate race. On Tuesday, I noted how billionaire environmental zealot Tom Steyer had decided to forego running ads against incumbent Mary Landrieu, D-La.

Hours later (there was no connection; just coincidence, though that didn't stop The Hayride from having some fun with the timing) news broke that Steyer is nonetheless trying to get Landrieu to toe the liberal line with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

In an attempt to bolster her self-proclaimed indispensable status, the Democrats recently gave Landrieu the chairperson's gavel on that committee. Steyer would like Landrieu to use it as a kind of propaganda tool for left-wing greens, according to an article that appeared late Tuesday in The Hill.

Steyer is pressuring Landrieu to subpoena executives with TransCanada, the pipeline builder that is a major player on the Keystone XL pipeline project. Steyer, for whom the cost of energy and everything else is of no concern, wants the pipeline nixed.

TransCanada executives have already testified before the committee, The Hill noted, which means any additional appearances would be designed more for liberal committee members to grandstand and parrot the Steyer line, which in this case is opposed to more jobs and tax revenues.

He's not against money, of course, and indeed the whole push to make energy more expensive for everyone would have the added benefit of pouring more taxpayer funds into alternative energy schemes, some of which Steyer's operations have invested in previously.

It's all perfectly legal, constitutionally protected even, what Steyer is doing. In other words, he has every right to spend his money in favor of political issues and on behalf of politicians he likes, and I have no problem with that. On the other hand, it's important for people to be aware of it, and to remember that the San Francisco-based hedge fund manager is one of these "out of state billionaires" we hear so much about.

Lately, we've been hearing a lot about it from none other than Landrieu backers. An ad blitz against Landrieu has urged her to take a more aggressive stance in favor of the XL pipeline, and noted she has funneled campaign cash to some ultraliberal colleagues whose platforms are much more to the liking of Steyer and other environmental extremists. The ads also have reminded Louisianians of Landrieu's critical support for Obamacare.

Stung, the Senate Majority PAC has responded with pro-Landrieu ads that feature (queue the ominous background music) the Koch Brothers, those nefarious men whom the left would have Americans believe are a pair of modern day Torquemadas.

The Kochs are identified as "out-of-state billionaires," and the same phrase runs through a second Senate Majority PAC ad that The Washington Post awarded its highest marks - four Pinocchios - for mendacity. That ad decries "out-of-state billionaires spending millions to rig the system and elect Bill Cassidy" in Louisiana.

It's true that the group Americans for Prosperity bankrolled a good deal of the anti-Landrieu campaign, and it's true the Koch Brothers are major funders of Americans for Prosperity. But who, exactly, is behind the Senate Majority PAC?

Well, in several instances that would be -- what should we call them? -- out-of-state billionaires. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, that most liberal of Republicans, is a big backer, as are Hollywood magnates. The law firm led by David Boies, perhaps most famous for helping Al Gore try to steal the 2000 presidential election, is also a donor.

Once again, if Bloomberg & Boies, or David Geffen and the Weinstein Brothers want to send lots of their after-tax dollars to liberal politicians, they have every right to do so. I'm not sure what Boies' take was on the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision (most liberals consider it a travesty), but it is, as those same liberals like to trumpet in other cases, "the law of the land."

It is reflective, however, of Landrieu's curious relationship with energy. On the one hand, her campaign receives thousands of dollars from energy companies, and she deserves some credit for not echoing the increasingly radical liberal attacks against the planet's economic lifeblood. On the other hand, she can't quite pry herself loose from the hardcore environmentalists.

This schizophrenic approach was in evidence Friday when, in her first big vote as committee chairwoman, Landrieu helped confirm along party lines the controversial Rhea Suh, President Obama's pick to be the Interior Department's assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks.